This is both my personal learning project and my contribution in the struggle to confront the ongoing Republican/ libertarian assault on rational science and constructive learning, as manifested in their malicious strategic Attacks on Science ~ A collection of articles, scientific resources, plus my own essays and indepth critique of various presentations from unidirectional-skeptics ~ Hopefully a resource for the busy, yet discerning, student who's concerned about the health of our Earth

Pages

Thursday, July 5, 2018

Bibliography Pruitt's Secrecy + ME FIRST state of mind

Good news Pruitt is gone, but keep in mind, the people that put him into that position love the job he did.You can bet Andrew Wheeler will be even worse, because he’s a smooth operator.After all their goal is vandalize the E.P.A.’s regulatory abilities as much as possible.And to do so with absolutist disregard for governmental rules and standards, or the public outcry and condemnation of their cavalier disregard for fundamental physical realities (read objective scientific knowledge) and their ME FIRST damned the consequences mentality.

I keep wondering why we don’t learn to enunciate our fundamental standards well enough so that we can start directly taking on their faith-blinded dogmatic fantasies - which have been given such a free pass for way the hell too long.

Why is it okay to do government business regarding important health and environmental regulations in secrecy?

Why are Corporate Profits more important than We The People and our wellbeing?

Why refuse to acknowledge human health and even social health depends on a healthy environment with it’s folds within folds of interconnected biological and geophysical systems and processes that provide our very life support system? How have we become so blinded to that?

Last summer one of (Pruitt’s) senior schedulers, Madeline G. Morris, was fired by Mr. Pruitt’s former deputy chief of staff, Kevin Chmielewski, who said he let her go because she was questioning the practice of retroactively deleting meetings from the calendar. Mr. Chmielewski has emerged as a harsh critic of Mr. Pruitt after a bitter falling out that led to his departure from the agency as well.

Ms. Morris, who started work as Mr. Pruitt’s scheduler in June 2017, confirmed Wednesday that she was fired after she raised objections about the deletions, which she believed were illegal, although she said that Mr. Chmielewski did not tell her his reasons for firing her. …

… Ms. Morris was called last July by two agency lawyers, who told her that the changes she was making to Mr. Pruitt’s schedule might be illegal, according to a person familiar with the conversation. The following month, Ms. Morris noticed that a number of changes had been made to the record of a trip Mr. Pruitt had taken to Italy. Ms. Morris questioned the legality of the changes to Mr. Chmielewski and Mr. Jackson, and a few days later was fired, he said.

A retroactive deletion of meetings and attendees from a cabinet official’s public records could violate the Federal Records Act, which requires agencies to maintain and preserve public documents, as well as a law prohibiting intentional distortion of federal records. …

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and his aides have kept "secret" calendars and schedules to overtly hide controversial meetings or calls with industry representatives and others, according to a former EPA official who is expected to soon testify before Congress. A review of EPA documents by CNN found discrepancies between Pruitt's official calendar and other records.

EPA staffers met routinely in Pruitt's office to "scrub," alter or remove from Pruitt's official calendar numerous records because they might "look bad," according to Kevin Chmielewski, Pruitt's former deputy chief of staff for operations, who attended the meetings.

A CNN review which compared Pruitt's public calendar with internal EPA schedules and emails shows more than two dozen meetings, events or calls were omitted from his public calendar.

Chmielewski said that some interactions were intentionally removed from Pruitt's calendar after they occurred …

… Chmielewski says he was forced to leave the EPA in February after raising questions about Pruitt's spending and management …

CNN has reached out to EPA repeatedly for comment on the allegations.

Chmielewski's description of hiding controversial events from the public appears to be supported by discrepancies between Pruitt's public calendar …

…his internal schedule shows that the meeting also included Anthony Chiarello, the then-CEO of shipping company TOTE. …

… Pruitt took a controversial trip to Italy that cost taxpayers $120,000. While there he dined with Cardinal Pell, a top Vatican official known for denying climate change who was then under investigation for claims of prior sexual offenses. …

The Environmental Protection Agency's Science Advisory Board, in a rebuke to the Trump administration's retreat on environmental protection, voted overwhelmingly Thursday in favor of a full board review of the agency's most important actions to dismantle climate policy.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who appointed about 15 members of the 44-member board, now must decide whether to accept its recommendation that the outside scientific experts be allowed to formally vet his decisions. …

… And the board voted unanimously for a review of Pruitt's proposal to restrict the types of scientific evidence the agency can use in writing EPA rules, his so-called "secret science" policy.

In a series of votes, the board endorsed all of the recommendations of a work group of 10 of its members, who reported that they had received little information from the agency on the science driving Pruitt's policy changes. …

Ten members of an SAB work group, in a signed memorandum, called for the full board to scrutinize Pruitt's proposal at a meeting on May 31, saying his approach was designed without necessary input from the scientific community. Leading national science organizations have mounted a campaign to reject Pruitt's approach.

Pruitt's proposal would no longer allow the EPA to use scientific studies where the underlying data is not public. The move could rule out health studies that promised participants confidentiality—some of which have served as the underpinning of regulations, especially clean air standards. The policy takes up a cause long-championed by the fossil fuel industry and its allies in Congress.

Internal EPA records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by the Sierra Club have revealed that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt met in secret with Union Pacific executives in Omaha during his October 2017 trip to Nebraska, to discuss the company’s deregulatory wishlist.

The email exchange between U.P. and EPA officials lists the attendees of the meeting with Pruitt — including Union Pacific chairman, president and CEO Lance Fritz — and the items that would be discussed:

The Railroad Tie Combustion Rule is of particular interest to U.P., because it regulates how railroad companies can dispose of the millions of creosote-treated railroad ties they discard annually in a way that does not violate the Clean Air Act or other environmental protections with the emission of toxic air pollutants generated from the wood preservatives in the ties. …

_____________________________________________________________________

AO: Scott Pruitt’s $43,000 secret phone booth broke the law

A new Government Accountability Office report concludes that the EPA violated two laws in building the booth.

The morass of ethical questions around Scott Pruitt’s conduct as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency is now stunningly thick.

But the Government Accountability Office has just answered one key question amid the allegations: The EPA broke the law when it built Pruitt’s secret phone booth last year.

In an opinion published Monday, the GAO reported that the agency violated Section 710 of the 2017 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act. The rule states that agencies can’t spend more than $5,000 to improve the office of a presidential appointee, whether that’s new furniture, paintings, or hardware. At least, not without approval from Congress.

Pruitt’s soundproof privacy booth, which was first reported by the Washington Post in September, cost $43,238.68. And it’s illegal for another reason too, says GAO: It violates the Antideficiency Act, which states that agencies aren’t allowed to rack up bills beyond what Congress has appropriated for them.

Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt is a man who is concerned about his safety. And that concern has come at a steep cost for taxpayers, adding up to some $3 million when pay is included with travel expenses, according to an EPA official who talked to the Associated Press about how Pruitt has been expanding his own personal security detail since coming into office. There is now a 20-member full-time detail on Pruitt, which is three times larger than his predecessor’s part-time security detail.

It seems the increased spending on Pruitt’s security came shortly after he arrived in Washington and promoted a former Secret Service agent to head up his security detail. Pasquale “Nino” Perrotta, who operates a private security company, quickly began expanding the EPA chief’s security detail so he would be well guarded 24 hours a day, even on family holidays. “Multiple” agents, for example, accompanied Pruitt to a family vacation in Disneyland.

__________________________________________________________

Anti-secrecy lawsuits soaring against Pruitt's EPA

Freedom of Information Act litigation is pouring in as the agency refuses to divulge details about the administrator's activities and travels.

The Environmental Protection Agency has experienced a huge surge in open records lawsuits since President Donald Trump took office, an analysis of data reviewed by POLITICO shows — a trend that comes amid mounting criticism of EPA's secrecy about Administrator Scott Pruitt’s travels, meetings and policy decisions. …

All told, plaintiffs have filed 55 public records lawsuits against EPA since Trump's inauguration, according to POLITICO's review of a database of cases compiled by The FOIA Project, an initiative run by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

Forty-six of those lawsuits came in 2017, making it the busiest calendar year by far for open-records cases brought against EPA, according to data stretching back to 1992. …

…Breaking with established protocol, the Israeli Government Press Office did not send out his schedule or any information regarding his stay, which was never officially announced.

All attempts to get a schedule, discover his arrival time or the members of his entourage — all information usually made available — failed. Nor were officials forthcoming about why the visit was so hush-hush. …

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt came to New Hampshire Tuesday for private meetings with Gov. Chris Sununu and representatives of the forest products industry, as well as a stop at a federal Superfund site in Nashua.

Following Pruitt’s visit, the EPA issued a statement focusing on his meeting at Central Paper Products, Inc., in Manchester. … The meeting between Sununu and Pruitt was not announced in advance, setting off criticism from the state Democratic Party.

Sununu spokesman Benjamin Vihstadt confirmed that the governor had met with Pruitt at the State House after the meeting ended. …

WASHINGTON — When career employees of the Environmental Protection Agency are summoned to a meeting with the agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt, at agency headquarters, they no longer can count on easy access to the floor where his office is, according to interviews with employees of the federal agency.

Doors to the floor are now frequently locked, and employees have to have an escort to gain entrance.

Some employees say they are also told to leave behind their cellphones when they meet with Mr. Pruitt, and are sometimes told not to take notes.

Mr. Pruitt, according to the employees, who requested anonymity out of fear of losing their jobs, often makes important phone calls from other offices rather than use the phone in his office, and he is accompanied, even at E.P.A. headquarters, by armed guards, the first head of the agency to ever request round-the-clock security.

A former Oklahoma attorney general who built his career suing the E.P.A., and whose LinkedIn profile still describes him as “a leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda,” Mr. Pruitt has made it clear that he sees his mission to be dismantling the agency’s policies — and even portions of the institution itself. …

Teacher Kristin Mink, who confronted Trump EPA Chief Scott Pruitt in a restaurant over his mounting scandals and asked him to resign, joins The Beat. Mink defends her actions:

_____________________________________

At 6:00 Kristin Mink says:

"Let me say this first is that I thinkthat this whole debate about civility isa waste of time. I wish that that theleft would stop talking about it becausecivility is not the issue here!

You havepeople who are speaking up there's noviolence involved you know this isliterally people voicing what it is theycare about, to the people whose salariesthey pay.

Right, so if they want to thenturn that conversation away from theissues and to, oh it's not the right time, it's not the right place, you're notdoing your job. If you're doing your jobproperly as a civil servant you want tohear from the people who are paying yourtaxes. You want to hear from the peoplewho you're supposed to be supporting andtaking care of."

( cc = Keep in mind Pruitt’s many secret meetings with powerful industry leaders, all the while evading and stonewalling the public and press (USA’s Fourth Estate) as much as possible. Then there’s Pruitt’s Kremlin level passion for secrecy. Why did he need all that secrecy? We know, so that he could vandalize the E.P.A. out of sight.

Our environment is more than an externality!

This ME FIRST cult proudly despises environmental protections because it cuts into profits. Collectively they are so myopic as to believe our society lives by profits alone - never appreciating that it’s a healthy environment that provides our life support systems along with all we hold near and dear.

E.P.A. was created to protect the common health - but now it’s been given over to a gang for whom profits are more important that people or honesty or ethics. )

Kristin Mink continues: "So the issue here is notcivility and the whole idea obviouslythis shouldn't even need to be said butthe whole idea of talking about civilityis ridiculous considering who we have asour president who has done so manythings that are outside the box ofcivility and kindness and goodness.

It's ridiculous to even spend time onthis, you know and I know that.Representative Maxine Waters you knowmade some comments about this and thatsome people on the Left have not beensupportive of her. I think that’sridiculous.

We should not be spendingtime nitpicking people who want tocriticize others for simply speaking outabout what they believe in and I think that it's my it's my right (and duty) as a citizen, it’s my responsibility as a mother and the same thing goes for everybodyelse in America. …"

RECOMMENDED WEBSITES

11/29/2016 I started this blog to debate climate science contrarians, I've done my part, they, the intellectual cowards for their part have run off and hide within their hermetically sealed echo chambers, safe to continue broadcasting more stupidity mixed with anger and hostility rather than constructive learning.

Now this horrendous election. Its changed everything and this blog, not sure where it's going, eventually I need to start another one, one less intent on futility reaching out for what ain't there and more focused on presenting a different perspective for its own sake, and to hell with the rest of it, it's too heart breaking.

I see Dec 19th as a key date. If there isn't serious focused engagement of the public in numbers that surprise everyone, well the oligarch will have their way with us.

Americans need to let Trump know from the gitgo, we do not approve of his con job and he better not get too crazy because he's earned zero good faith or honeymoon considerations. We shall see.

{edited 12/11/2014}

I know there are too many typos, what can I say, eyes aren't what they were, I get rushed, and always did have a thing with transposing…{well, I also hated high school "english" classes... bad call that one.}. Doing the best I can with what I got. Embarrassing though it is, it's better than doing nothing. Besides, it's the issues and reasoning that we should be worrying about.

Though I'm in my own little world here, I'm also constantly learning and evolving and do get occasional feedback and when I reread stuff and find errors or omissions or garbage, I fix it. If it's major I'll acknowledge it with an 'edited' note, minor stuff I don't bother.

~ ~ ~

I hardly keep track of Anthony's latest antics (besides, with Sou on the job why bother - can't beat her insights). It's just me over here and I have more important things to do with my precious hours - still now that Anthony's luster has been wearing thin he's put his energy into discovering and honing new fresh faces to carry on the public show of the Republican/Libertarian strategic attack on science.

He seems to have transitioned into a ring-leader, perhaps mentor/coach would be better, producer? At least that's how Mr. Steele and his antics of the past year has gotten me to think about it. So in that regard this blog remains about WUWT's brand of thinking and logic and my struggle to understand the anatomy of the fraud they've perpetrated against mankind. {December 2014}

_____________________________

ok, now some recommended websites:

This blog was started in April 2013 and is written by an actual scientist so it has a refreshingly serious objective air to it, plus he does a good clear job of explaining complex issues.

Tamino, an acknowledged statistical/mathematical expert of the highest order, at Open Mind also does an excellent job of holding Anthony’s feet to the fire with clearly explained facts and math. Check it out:http://tamino.wordpress.com~ ~ ~

And of course, there is the excellent, most up to date internet depository of climate studies and information for the non-expert public.

Then there's RealClimate.org the scientist's commentary site. Run by working climate scientists intended to help the interested public and journalists sort through the complexities of the climatology. They provide "quick response to developing stories and provide the context" that is too often missing from public media's depiction. {But, you better be serious and have some real science education/understanding under your belt if you want to keep up.}

I remember back in da day, good websites/blogs were few and far between. But over the past years that's been changing to the point that it's impossible to keep up with them all. Here's an incomplete, and long overdue addition to my above list: